2018 Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism The Kurt Schork Memorial Fund (KSMF) is now accepting submissions for its 2018 awards in international journalism. Since its inception in 2002, the Kurt Schork Memorial Fund has sought to support those journalists Kurt most admired, the freelancers and local reporters whose work is often poorly paid, mostly unsung and all too often fraught with danger. Today, the three annual awards, for freelance and local journalism and, since 2017, for news fixers, are recognized worldwide as a mark of excellence and have an established track record for brave reporting on conflict, corruption and injustice. The 17th annual call for awards is therefore now split into three categories: a Local Reporter award that recognizes the often over-looked work of journalists in developing nations or countries in transition who write about events in their homeland. a Freelance award for those journalists who travel to the world’s conflict zones, usually at great personal risk, to witness and report the impact and consequences of events. A News Fixer award rewarding local journalists and/or experts, hired by a visiting foreign reporter or news organization, whose guidance and local knowledge materially benefited the content, impact and reach of the stories submitted. Each award is for $5,000 and will be presented at a prestigious ceremony in London in late October or November 2017. Since 2009, the awards ceremony has been hosted at the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s main offices in Canary Wharf, London. The deadline for entries is midnight (GMT) on Wednesday, May 31. If you would like to apply, or make a nomination for the newly introduced News Fixer award, please visit the 2018 entry form page which provides definitions for each of the award categories and will guide you through the application process. Some of the main detail is also included below: 2018 Submission criteria Three separate articles must be submitted, including when journalists are nominating fixers for the new award. The submitted articles must have been published between June 1, 2017 and May 31, 2018. Accepted media: any print-based medium, such as newspapers and magazines, or established online publications. Blogs, personal websites and social media pages or channels are not accepted. Articles can encompass war reporting, human rights issues, cross-border troubles, corruption or other controversial matters impacting on people’s lives. Judges will be looking for professionalism, high journalistic standards, and evidence of dedication and courage in obtaining the story. Because of problems with scanned entries and failed links in previous years, we require that each article be provided as a text file – MS Word (.doc or .docx) or similar text format (.rtf), or a PDF of a text file. You may supply a URL link to your article(s), or a scan (as a PDF or JPG file) as supporting evidence of the publication context, but your entry will be disqualified if you do not also submit the required text files. The awards panel will take into account nominations for fixers who have received more than one recommendation…

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (PAMACC News) - Africa could see its energy shortfall significantly improved with the launch of a map showing the continents rich resource potentials and opportunities for investors in especially renewable energy exploitation. The new Atlas launched today January 30th,2018 in Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire,by the UN Environment and African Development Bank shows energy exploitation hot spots in the continent and some opportunities up for grabs for investors in the sector. Prepared in cooperation with the Environment Pulse Institute, United States Geological Survey and George Mason University, the Atlas consolidates the information on the energy landscape in Africa. It provides information in the form of detailed ‘before and after’ images, charts, maps and other satellite data from 54 countries through visuals detailing the challenges and opportunities in providing Africa’s population with access to reliable, affordable and modern energy services. “The Atlas makes a strong case that investments in green energy infrastructure can bolster Africa’s economic development and bring it closer to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals,” said Juliette Biao Koudenoukpo, Director and Regional Representative, UN Environment, Africa Office. “It is an important policy guide for African governments as they strive to catalyze national development by making use of their energy resources,” she added. The Atlas shows both the potential and the fragility of the continent’s energy resources which are at the heart of Africa’s socio-economic development. It highlights some success stories of sustainable energy development around the continent, but it also puts the spotlight on major environmental challenges associated with energy infrastructure development. The report accompanying the launch notes that Africa is endowed with enormous renewable and non-renewable resources that can be tapped by investors to boost economic development and fight against poverty. Investments in green energy infrastructure can bolster Africa’s economic development and bring it closer to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals , the report says. Energy consumption in Africa is the lowest in the world, and per capita consumption has barely changed since 2000 shows.Some useful findings contained in the Atlas include; that the poorest African households spend 20 times more per unit of energy than wealthy households when connected to the grid. It also revealed that Africa has the world’s lowest per capita energy consumption: with 16 per cent of the world’s population (1.18 billion people out of 7.35 billion) it consumes about 3.3 per cent of global primary energy. With current trends, it will take Africa until 2080 to achieve full access to electricity. Of all energy sources, Africa consumes most oil (42 per cent of its total energy consumption) followed by gas (28 per cent), coal (22 per cent), hydro (6 per cent), renewable energy (1 per cent) and nuclear (1 per cent). Africa is the world’s seventh largest coal producer and accounts for 94 per cent of Africa’s coal production. Africa’s renewable energy resources are diverse, unevenly distributed and enormous in quantity — almost unlimited solar potential (10 TW), abundant hydro (350 GW), wind (110 GW) and geothermal energy sources (15 GW). Nearly…

EARTH MEANDERS DEEP ECOLOGY ESSAY Our one shared living biosphere is collapsing and dying. Continued being depends urgently upon reconnecting with nature through global embrace of an ecology ethic whose individual affirmative outcomes for natural ecosystems are sufficient in sum to sustain global nature. A primary ethical measure of a person is the degree to which their lifestyle positively or negatively impacts nature. "Ecology is the meaning of life. Truth, justice, equity, and sustainability are the ideals whereby ecology is maintained." – Dr. Glen Barry "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” – Aldo Leopod, The Land Ethic, A Sand County Almanac. "To cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate hope of survival." – Wendell Berry "To the question: Wilderness, who needs it? Doc would say: Because we like the taste of freedom, comrades." – Edward Abbey, The Monkey Wrench Gang Let’s start from the self-evident premise that Earth is a living organism. Like cells aggregating to tissues, and onward into organisms and populations; species and ecosystems are the lower level parts of the biosphere in sum. Old forests, natural waterways, oceans, soils, wetlands, and the atmosphere are the organs that together constitute a living Earth. Big old trees in large, connected and ecologically intact old-growth forests stabilize global climate and power the biosphere, making Earth habitable. Water is the elixir of life without which organic life is not possible. Soils take millennia to accumulate, providing the basis for plants, food growth, and ultimately wildlife and humanity. Wetlands and oceans, the atmosphere and climate, together constitute the environment needed by all life. Such natural ecosystems – and the cyclic homeostasis of their interactions – provide the basis for all life and are thus godlike and worthy of veneration. Modern lifestyles have forsaken the ethical framework necessary to perpetuate 3.5 billion years of natural evolution. Ancient flows of energy and nutrients between air, land, water and ocean ecosystems - that maintain our one shared biosphere - are ending. Earth is being killed by human industrial growth caused ecosystem loss, abrupt climate change, over-population, nationalistic perma-war, and inequity and injustice. Global biosphere collapse, the end of being, is upon us. Ecologists have been warning of global ecosystem collapse and abrupt climate change for decades. So many of the "natural disasters" we see in the daily news are in fact symptoms of this decline. However, much nature remains, and lag times when natural loss inevitably collapses the whole are unknown. And Earth is amazingly tough and regenerative (but not infinitely so). There may be a brief window of opportunity to transition together to global ecological sustainability, otherwise together we face biosphere collapse and the end of being. But it will require a revolutionary change in mindset – an "ecology ethic" which will be herein defined – to be nearly universally accepted. And fast. A habitable global environment…

PAMACC in Abidjan, COTE D'IVOIRE The Second Conference of the Parties to the Bamako Convention (also known COP 2) began this morning in Abidjan, the capital city of Cote d'Ivoire. The conference will hold from 30th January to 1st February 2018 under the theme: "The Bamako Convention: a platform for a pollution-free Africa." "COP 2 aspires to provide a platform to discuss ways and means of ensuring that the continent rids itself of hazardous wastes and contribute to the achievement of a pollution-free planet", says Mme Aida Keita M'bo, President of the COP and Malian Minister for Environment, Sanitation and Sustainable Development. Host Minister and Ivoirian Minister for Public Health, Environment and Sustainable Development, Mme Anne Désirée Ouloto urged her colleagues to work torwards a COP 2 outcome that will "prevent Africa from becoming a dumping ground for toxic wastes through an effective implementation of the Bamako Convention”. "The importation of hazardous waste into Africa is a crime against humanity and we must commit to prompt action aimed at overcoming barriers to effective management and minimization of waste in Africa through increased knowledge on waste scenarios in order to prevent harm to health and environment,” Mme Ouloto added. "We have a collective responsibility to safeguard communities from the environmental and health consequences of hazardous waste dumping," said Ibrahim Thiaw, Deputy Executive Director of UN Environment. "Africa is not the dustbin of the world" Thiaw added while reinstating UN Environment's commitment to a pollution-free world. From Basel to Bamako Convention The Bamako Convention is a treaty of African nations prohibiting the importation of any hazardous (including radioactive) waste into Africa. The convention which came into force in 1998 is a response to Article 11 of the Basel convention which encourages parties to enter into bilateral, multilateral and regional agreements on Hazardous Waste to help achieve the objectives of the convention. African Nations established the Bamako Convention in 1991 to complement the Basel Convention. The Convention, which came into force in 1998, is aimed at protecting the health of populations and the environment of African countries through a ban on the import of all hazardous and radioactive wastes. It also prohibits the dumping or incineration of hazardous wastes in oceans and inland waters, and promotes the minimization and control of trans-boundary movements of hazardous wastes within the African continent. The Convention also aims to improve and ensure ecologically rational management and handling of hazardous waste within Africa, as well as the cooperation between African nations.